Obama Didn’t Create 4.5 Million Jobs

CALLER: Mr. Limbaugh, I’m thrilled to talk to you, and thank you for everything you do.

RUSH: That you, sir. I really do appreciate your patience. I know you’ve been waiting a long time.

CALLER: No problem. So here’s what I have to say. I got tired of hearing at the convention the other night that President Obama has created 4.5 million jobs. Okay?

RUSH: Yeah, I know.

CALLER: So I went to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and I pulled every single month for the years of 2010, 2011, and 2012, okay? In 2010, there were 850,000 net new jobs created, of which 411,000 of them were from the census workers, the temp jobs. In 2011, 1,152,000, and in 2012 so far, 1,017,000. I didn’t include 2009, because those were all losses for every month, and I give Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt for the first year of his term.

RUSH: Well, that’s very compassionate of you. You mean there were no jobs created at all in 2009?

CALLER: None. It was a negative. It was a negative number.

RUSH: But that’s when “the recovery” started. June of 2009 is when “the recovery” started. That’s what the regime told us.

CALLER: Well, that’s what they claim, but my point is: Why can they continue to say that 4.5 million jobs were created when they couldn’t validate that anywhere?

RUSH: Because it’s their job to lie.

CALLER: But how long can they continue before somebody challenges them on it?

RUSH: Debbie “Blabbermouth” Schultz is being challenged every day now by the media, and she doesn’t care. She’s continuing to lie. In fact, Anderson Cooper finally threw up his hands, and said, “You know what? You live in an alternate universe.” He told her, “You are in an alternate universe.” And she just keeps lying. It’s her job. This notion of four-and-a-half million jobs, it’s a crock anyway. Even with your math or without your math it’s a crock. The truth is we are losing jobs. There is no recovery. We are not growing the economy. This is nothing more than a distraction and a smoke screen. Nobody is creating a career right now.

When we think of economic growth and jobs, these people think workers and hamburger flippers or whatever they can count where somebody’s being paid no matter what. That’s not the way we look at people. We look at people investing in themselves in careers following their passions, being entrepreneurial. It’s a whole different picture. But I’m glad you ran the numbers on it because it’s something I’m tired of hearing, too, four-and-a-half million jobs. And it isn’t true.

Look, I was just watching CNN, and the mayor of LA, Antonio Villaraigosa was on. He’s the guy that ran the vote yesterday on admitting God back. And he just lied to what’s-her-face, Suzanne Malveaux. Is that what it was? Doesn’t matter, some CNN babe. He just lied. (imitating Villaraigosa) “Oh, no. No, no, no. The vote was what it was. I just did it three times just to, you know, to make sure. But, oh, no that was not preordained. No. No. Nobody protested. I don’t know what you think you saw, but nobody protested what we did.” He actually said that. God got booed, the vote got booed, and Villaraigosa’s out there on CNN five minutes ago saying that didn’t happen. I was reading the closed-captioning, but I just saw her nodding her head, so I don’t know that she challenged him or not.

Look, that’s supposed to be a two-thirds vote. And I don’t care, we heard it, you heard it, we saw it, whatever, it wasn’t two-thirds. It wasn’t close to two-thirds. The democratic process didn’t matter. Barack Obama told them to put God back in there, and that’s what was gonna happen, and he’s the guy that took it out, the reference to God. There was never near two-thirds of a vote on anything there.

BREAK TRANSCIRPT

RUSH: I tell you what really irritates me more than anything about the repetitive 4.5 million jobs created. You know what the real number is? And, by the way, we have none other than CNN as the fact-check source. “CNN Fact Check: About Those 4.5 Million Jobs…” There has been — now, look at me — the real number is a net gain of 300,000 jobs over the course of the Obama administration to date. They talk about 4.5 million jobs, but some of those are existing, repetitive. The net gain, literal new jobs that didn’t exist, is 300,000.

CNN also grudgingly admits — and I’m gonna quote from CNN — overall, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession, which is the whole point of this discussion. There are fewer people working now than when Obama took office. That’s all anybody needs to know, and that’s what we all do know. There are 23 million people not working. In fact, the number could be close to 80 when you count those that have given up, gone way beyond their 99 weeks. It’s atrocious, this number of people not working, and for them to run around and talk about 4.5 million jobs created, they know they are lying through their teeth.

They don’t have but 300,000 jobs they can hang their hat on, if you even want to acknowledge that government creates private sector jobs. And I would maintain to you the government doesn’t create private sector jobs. They either get in the way of jobs or get out of the way, but they don’t create them. Government policy retards job growth or encourages it, but Obama’s not creating any private sector jobs. No president does. By definition, it’s not possible. The fact of the matter is, there are fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession, despite the net gain of 300,000 new jobs, even despite.

RUSH: Hoover, Alabama. Hello, Bob. I’m glad you waited. It’s great to have you on the program, sir.

CALLER: Thanks, Rush. I appreciate it. Listen, this thing you mentioned earlier about Clinton saved everything. I think there’s a by-product here people aren’t thinking about. The Democrats have this disdain for the American people, the mistrust for the American people, the lack of confidence in the American people.

RUSH: That’s true.

CALLER: It wasn’t Bill Clinton that saved the economy. Of course it was Republican Congress and the American people. We went to work. We created the jobs. We’re the ones that do it, but the Democrats on national television — luckily nobody was watching — just prove again that they think they’re the big dog, and that the American people should just tag along like little puppies.

RUSH: They want people sitting around waiting for government to do for ’em. They don’t want people being self-reliant.

CALLER: Absolutely. But the by-product is that it proves there’s a disdain for all of us out here. They don’t think we have the capability. If they would just get out of the way and let us build this country, we could do it, but the Democrats don’t think that way.

RUSH: Well, they don’t want you doing that. There’s no need for them if you’re able to do that, and I’ll tell you something else, Bob. If you’re able to demonstrate to a moron that he has more control over his destiny than the government does —

CALLER: Right.

RUSH: — then the moron’s no longer a moron, and thus no longer needs government. That’s what they can’t afford. They can’t afford self-reliant people. It’s bye-bye Democrat liberalism if more and more people become self-reliant.

CALLER: Well, that’s the problem. And I think the American people listening to you and other conservatives and listening to Ryan — you know, it’s easy, all that Romney and Ryan have to say is what I just said. Not that I’m that smart, but I agree with you about something else, Rush. I’m so tired of thinking that these politicians are not as smart as me and I’m not that smart.

RUSH: They aren’t. They aren’t. They live in a cloistered and closed world, and they hobnob with each other and they begin to believe all the pap that circulates within their bubble. But they think they’re indispensable. They think you can’t get along without ’em and they want you thinking that way. You know, we sit here and we say that presidents don’t create jobs in the private sector. And we mean that, folks, in a really strict and literal way. There’s not one president that creates a job. But, on the other hand, a case could be made that Bill Clinton caused this recession or was at the beginning of the cause of it. Who was it that insisted the banks make these loans to people that couldn’t ever pay ’em back? That was Bill Clinton and Janet Reno. Oh, and Andrew Cuomo, who’s now the governor of New York. He was the HUD secretary, they were all in on this, and it was all oriented on this notion that it’s unfair that some Americans don’t have houses while other people do. It’s just example of an unfair country.

And so, to make the country fair, they went to the people they thought were responsible, the banks. The banks were not lending to these poor people. The banks were not lending to people of color ’cause the banks were racist, sexist pigs. So Clinton and the Democrats and the feel-good liberals went to the banks and said, “You’re gonna start lending money to ’em. You’re gonna give ’em mortgages or we’re gonna investigate you. We got this law called the Community Reinvestment Act, and you have to make loans available to ’em.” The banks said, “Well, what if they can’t pay ’em back?” “That’s not our problem.” So the banks loan the money and then figure out creative ways to not take the loss but rather pass it along to some other sucker. And they kept cultivating new groups of suckers to buy these worthless mortgages until there weren’t any more suckers left. Then it blew up. And that’s how we had the subprime mortgage crisis.

You could say that Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, who actually was the forefront of this, Bill Clinton got this thing started, with the best of intentions, oh, yes. Poor people in homes and I might add that George W. Bush thought it was a good idea, too. It was a good idea to say so, let’s put it that way. These are politicians. It’s a good idea to say, “Yeah, it would be great if more Americans had the American dream and owned their own home.” So, hello subprime mortgage crisis. Presidents — and Obama’s proving it — they can prolong economic malaise. Jimmy Carter proved it. They can prolong it. They can punish achievement with taxes, regulations. Democrats do that. But as far as creating jobs, Obama wouldn’t know how. Roads, bridges, shovel-ready, he doesn’t have the slightest idea how a business is created, invested in, grown.